Advanced and sustainable manufacturing: towards the industrialization of industry

Much of what today is established science or everyday technology began as fiction verging on the impossible, as the team of the Center for Advanced and Sustainable Manufacturing Studies (CEFAS) of the University of Matanzas knows only too well.

Despite the country’s economic limitations made worse by the U.S. blockade, CEFAS strives to put talent before hardship. It works, as evidenced by its high-impact results even in the midst of the pandemic.

Since the beginning of the fight against COVID-19 in Cuba, the center allocated resources to produce 3D printed face shields with biodegradable raw materials for Public Health institutions.

“Today we are preparing an innovation project based on the use of Industry 4.0 techniques to monitor, certify and achieve sustainability in the manufacture of disposable sanitary masks in Cuba,” CEFAS director Ramón Quiza Sardiñas said.

Known as the fourth industrial revolution, Industry 4.0 involves the collection of large volumes of data, the use of algorithms to process them, and the large-scale interconnection of digital systems and devices in large, medium and small enterprise.

CEFAS’s remarkable contribution to the actions against the virus ever since the appearance of the first cases in Cuba was recently recognized during the X International Scientific Convention CIUM 2021 of the local university.

The Center is committed to boosting the Cuban economy, an endeavor noticeable in breakthroughs such as the application of a system to inspect the welded joints of liquefied gas cylinders, and the recycling of welding slag at the provincial metal enterprise.

Adapting advances such as nanotechnology, the Internet of Things, 3D manufacturing and other modern technologies to the context and needs of Cuban industry is part of CEFAS’s mission at a time when the island needs to move towards the future under science’s guidance.